Nick Yanks ‘Korra’ From TV, Moves Series To Online Platforms

In an unprecedented programming move that surprised even the show’s creators, Nickelodeon will remove The Legend of Korra from its network schedule, and premiere the remaining episodes of season three exclusively on digital platforms.

The network will air its final broadcast episode tomorrow evening. Beginning on August 1, the five remaining episodes of the “Book 3” season will debut weekly on Nick.com and the Nick app, as well as on platforms like Amazon, Google Play, Xbox and Hulu.

“I appreciate all the support for the show and share your frustration,” Korra co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino wrote on his Facebook fan page. “[T]his was a disappointing development for sure but as long as you all are able to see the show in some capacity, I’m grateful.” A fourth season of the show is currently in production, according to DiMartino.

PARTNER MESSAGE

Fans of the series have been concerned about the show’s ratings for some time, even going so far as to create videos that discuss why so few people are watching the new season. Many fans have accused Nickelodeon of not promoting the series enough and airing it in a poor timeslot.

Korra will have a panel at Comic-Con on Friday, and the show’s co-creator Bryan Konietzko posted this note on Tumblr indicating that they’ll be discussing the move to online platforms:

Amid Amidi is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Cartoon Brew. Read his full bio HERE.

Roberto Severino

Probably some of the worst Nickelodeon related news that I’ve heard in a while but at the same time, I’m so glad that the show will continue even without the backing of a big network. Quite strange as to why Nick keeps doing this kind of stuff to themselves. The channel to me has been dead since about 2006 or so but it astounds me how much of a deeper grave they keep digging themselves in.

OdysseyTag

I know what you mean. I also feel the channel let itself down. Its over reliance on SpongeBob SquarePants and its insistence on live-action series to rival Disney have really made them lose their way somehow. The days of Klasky Csupo, KaBlam!, Oh Yeah! Cartoons and the likes might be in the past, but I personally think Nickelodeon is still in a good position to turn things around – problem is they’re not making the type of moves to make that “turn around” happen.

Barrett

Right now Cn and even Disney Channel seems like a better place to see new animation than Nickelodeon.

kuzronk

Hub Network anybody?

BlueBoomPony

Kinda miss Dan.

kuzronk

It barely did well rating wise and didn’t have any toys. You should be glad that hub had it and not nick.

SarahJesness

Disappointing, but considering how they’ve been treating season 3, I guess it’s not too surprising. (though what’s kind of weird is that apparently, the past few episodes were advertised as only being aired on Nick and they wouldn’t appear online) What bugs me is that Nick hasn’t really been giving the show much of a chance, so it’s no shock that ratings are low. We got almost no information on season 3 until a week before the premiere was quite suddenly set to air. New episodes are being aired in twos, which shows the network is trying to get the season over with. These new episodes also aren’t given much advertising.

I wonder if the issue is that Nick doesn’t really know what to do with the show. LoK is pretty different from most of the stuff they’re airing right now, which consists mostly of wacky cartoon comedies with lots of butt jokes, and tween live-action comedies. So maybe the network isn’t sure how to treat this animated action-fantasy (which seems to be designed with an older audience in mind when compared to other Nick shows) even though it has a sizable fanbase. It kind of sucks that there currently aren’t many places for a show like LoK at all, really.

James VanDam

I just hope the TMNT doesn’t get the ax like korra is getting. But toy sales seem to be keeping them afloat.

I do find it odd for many fans of the show not to know about Book 2’s season opener, as well as Book 3, when it was mentioned in some sort of capacity on social media. Granted, Nickelodeon could’ve done more, but I would honestly feel a real fan would do some digging in finding out, and doing some promotions themselves once they find the information.

I was able to find out with someone posting the times and dates in time before the openers, and I can’t say I am a huge fan like Aang, but just want to see how the series turns out.

Still, I believe that there are many reasons that the show has not fully lifted off the ground as some people believe it should in ratings, acclaim, and fanfare.

I honestly fault all sides (the fans, the creators, Nickelodeon) for not working together in making this show as successful as it could be right now. For these reasons:

1. Unlike The Last Airbender series, I don’t feel as though the creators have it all figured out for Korra, not as much as they did with the previous series. There was a certain goal with Aang, and everyone knew that from the start of what he needed to do. With Korra, there were some goals, if not too many, where it didn’t stick past the first series. It felt like more changes of the goals from Book to Book.

2. Nickelodeon could have done a better job promoting the series, as it did the very beginning of Book 1. We always can do better at something. The change in times is a frustrating thing for audiences as well. You can’t just throw a party, but not tell enough people, and expect a grand turn out. Same goes with changing dates and times for that one event.

3. Lastly, and I said it before, I feel the fans did not do their part in staying informed. Some people have posted the times when the show was coming back on for Book 2 and 3. They even had a trailer for both Books before the series came out. I do also wonder if fans took time to email or mailed letters to Nickelodeon of when the show would appear. I am also sure that fans do talk to each other, and even the people involved with the show to find out when it would appear. However, and it seems to be the case, not much effort was put in to hear about the show’s return.

In the end though, and I do thank those who have read through this all, I know this is long winded, I honestly believe the show is not succeeded not because of one party…it takes a whole team to win a game, just like a whole team to create an animation series…same goes with making a successful show. Creators, network, fans. If all cylinders are on for every aspect, we would not be talking about this new development right now. I really believe that.

This season’s been really strange. Myself and my friend who are both big fans of the show didn’t even know the new season was on till we saw it mentioned on Reddit after it had started up. For some reason they’ve been airing two episodes at a time (not complaining but whaaaa!?). Add to that they haven’t been putting any episodes up on their site and it’s clear this season is being treated very strangely.

I’m still loving the show and I hope it gets to tell its story as it deserves. With a decent adult following it’s key they don’t restrict it to just the Saturday morning cartoon slot (which most adults will never catch) and advertise more broadly.

GW

I’ve been wanting to watch the show but missed an episode when I went on vacation and couldn’t find a way to catch up on previous episodes. I’m sure at least some other people have had similar problems.

Natalie

What on earth…

Josh Moore

Nickelodeon is obviously the worst channel out there right now. I absolutely feel sorry for the people who work that channel that continues to take away everything good of running a channel until there’s nothing left of it and this news is no exception.

Definitely–I was cringing as two teenage boys in Every Witch Way which is on before Korra reenact the duel between Tybalt and Romeo–with a salami and a really long loaf of bread for swords all through the hallways of the school.

kuzronk

>It is the American version of the Nickelodeon Latin American show Grachi.
Shows how lazy they are.

jhalpernkitcat

I actually know this–because morbid curiosity made me look it up when I first saw it.

nevilleross

So they did Romeo & Juliet with a salami and a long loaf of bread-so what? That kind of slapstick’s timeless.

As I said above, not all shows on the Saturday morning kidvid blocks of the past were all animated, most were live action, and Nick is just doing what was done years ago. I think that you people objecting are just pissy because you can’t get into it.

Josh Moore

At least with Disney Channel, they’re still airing some cartoons that are now part of Disney XD and giving them basic cable premieres for a bigger audience to see. That’s a step forward from Nick.

kuzronk

and trying something different from the norm (Gravity Falls)

nevilleross

Not really (although it’s a good show.)

j12345690

uh i know this is a old post but Disney xd is not basic cable for some people also nick still has Sanjay and Craig which is a show i like

Josh Moore

I’ve seen a few episodes for the show and it’s a show that isn’t as bad as many people say who didn’t give the show a chance after one episode or never really watched it and judged it by its cover.

nevilleross

Obnoxious to you, not to the kids who are watching the show and are fans-try and remember that.

Well, I guess this will end my father constantly teasing that he has a sports draft to watch whenever I state that I want the tv for an hour for Friday each week. (believe it or not, we only have one tv) Also, my mother will be able to watch TLC all night long now.
Being more serious, I feel sad that this had to happen, because to me, while I have just started (and have a lot of catching up to do) on the original series of Avatar the Last Airbender, I felt that Korra was one of the best cartoons on Nickelodeon these days–especially when I have to watch cringeworthy advertisements for things like Sanji and Craig.

Compared to Book 2–Book 3 of Korra is really good so far, with likable new characters and fascinating villains. However, I was surprised when I discovered that each week there would be an hour of episodes–I felt like they were rushing the season quite a bit, and would have loved to have watched it one episode per week–with a few back to back episodes once in a while-especially for the finale. Well, I’d best inform my boyfriend about this–although I’ll bet he already knows.

Thanatos2k

Nickelodeon is intentionally sabotaging the show. This is disgusting.

Alan

I was a pretty big fan of The Last Airbender but I have to say Korra just isn’t doing it for me this time.

I really dislike the character designs, I thought they would grow on me but they haven’t. Mako’s is the worst of them all but I feel they were being too conservative with them. Korra would have looked much better in a tank top for example (it would have been more flattering for her, drawing breasts like that on someone who is wearing compression just looks stupid) but I imagine the reason they didn’t is then she would have looked the spitting image of Levi from Black Lagoon, especially when they pull the exact same facial expressions half the time.

That’s another criticism I have, it looks too similar to other shows, Gurren Lagann, Black Lagoon, Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champoo. It’s like the creators got all the Groundwork Artbooks they could find of those shows and referenced them in most scenes. I had the same opinion about The Last Airbender though to be fair, I thought it looked similar to early Naruto but it really come of age midway in and became it’s own thing.

The writers also don’t seem to treat important characters very well. Tenzin for example was a big thing for me as a fan of Aang, but he was one of the most terrible, cliched, smacked to the floor off screen, sidekicky and mechanical characters I’ve seen in American TV animation for a long time. Think about DragonBall Z with Goku and Gohan, Gohan had a lot to live up to and at one point was stronger than Goku and actually did stuff, he faught Freeza, beat Cell twice, he beat Garlic Jr and had one of the longest, most epic scenes fighting Fat Buu then normal Buu, the animation was inspiring, there was tension and power in the attacks and you got the feeling if Goku wasn’t around the world would still be ok. (not to mention the movies Gohan is in, beating Bojack and fighting his entire crew all at once for example, the son of a previous protagonist is sure as heck no throwaway extra)

The part I hate the most, is Korra is a lot older than Aang, she also seemed to be a prodigy and found bending easy, took part in a course setup by the last Avatar to quickly train the next, whereas Aang had a lot of trouble, a lot of training from amateur benders, yet she gets her ass handed to her without doing anything, against generic enemies. Aang was untouchable for example when the Earth King (?) was trying to force him into the Avatar state, he had an army of military earth benders attacking him, at one point fighting Zuko and Azula at the same time, yet Korra faces one non bender and it’s over, in a couple of seconds, even when she is in the avatar state.

The introduction to Zuko’s grandson (?) with his fleet of ships was awesome and with the reputation of the fire nations navy (a bit like the British navy in WWII) it felt like it was going to be epic, but before he even got close his fleet was wiped out like it was nothing. If that’s the case, what the heck was the point of Aang? it completely undermined everything he did.

Worst of all I can’t get over how nobody respects the avatar status, nobody seems to care, the writers went nowhere with it, Korra seemed like more of a corrupt politician than for example someone of royalty that everyone talks about, a role with a lot of history.

Perhaps I’m too old now, and since I’ve become an animator perhaps I’m being too critical and may have otherwise not have seen the things I’ve noticed, but I just wanted to say it anyway, I can’t get into it for whatever reason. I just think unless the character actually speaks you don’t see much in the way of personality, Korra should have been slumping and looking lazy like a spoiled celebrity but nothing, no traits at all, stands like everyone else, talks like everyone else.

I don’t think it deserves the lack of attention it is getting from Nick though, what the heck, seriously they need to advertise this show better, it’s like they’re not even bothering.

Reefer

I have to be honest here. I loved Avatar the Last Airbender. But Korra leaves me cold. She is not a likeable character. In fact, none of the characters in the show are outstanding. I do admire the show’s production values, but that’s it. And that’s not enough to keep me tuning in week after week, or whenever Nick releases the episodes. Too bad.

BlueBoomPony

I think she’s one of he most realistic characters they’ve done. Imagine what it would be like as a teenager to have the responsibility of world peace and balance on your shoulders. Aang was undercover for most of his series. What we see with Korra is the regular Avatar process with the pressures, politics and the global problems. Each to his own, but I find flawed heroes who battle and overcome their limitations far more interesting than the theoretical happy go lucky perfect Korra a lot of folks seem to want.

Alatriste

I dropped it after season 1, what a disappointment.

storyfan

THIS. Despite some poor choices in the finale, Korra: Book One was superb television. But Book Two completely botched it.

Steven Bowser

I am willing to guess that most people watch the show online as it is anyways, and that it would be a good move to make the show (and MOST shows, actually) a digital-only thing. Why not have TV shows on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. and let people watch them at their own pace? I think that’s the direction TV is going nowadays.
As long as they don’t cancel it, that’s all I care about. I’ll watch it anywhere they put it.

Nick bought all the rights to the TMNT franchise for $60 million back in 2009. So yes, they have to make back that investment, if they haven’t already.

I never thought Korra was that great, but it’s still awful that Nick keeps shooting the Avatar franchise, which by all reason should be one of their flagships, in the foot like this.

James VanDam

Right. But it seems that every good animated show on tv gets the boot these days. Young Justice, Green Lantern TAS, Symbionic Titan, Tron Uprising Motor City, ect ect

DangerMaus

Motor City was a good show?. I watched a few episodes and it didn’t do much for me. It just reminded me of the cheap, crappy animated adventure series that infected Saturday morning TV in the ’70s. Action scenes were done so bad that they were almost incoherent.

I’ll agree on Tron Uprising though. That show looked quite promising from the few episodes I was able to see.

People keep mentioning Symbionic Titans. That is one I’ve never seen and only heard of it when I started looking at this site.

James VanDam

Motor City was a Awesome show. Don’t expect some sort of deep intricate story though.Though some of the character’s back stories are really well told. All in all It was a fun, high-octane, thrill ride, with fun characters, excellent animation, and breathtaking backgrounds.

Symbionic Titan (no plural) is another great show that you should check out.

DangerMaus

Well, you never know. I might give Motor City another try if I can find the episodes. Supposedly Symbionic Titan was playing on Teletoon. I checked on their site and don’t see it on their schedule. Both the Teletoon and Cartoon Network.ca sites are just terrible. The people who designed those sites deserve to join FOX executives as crotch powder for Prof. Farnsworth. They mention being able to see full eps, so I decided to see what the big deal was with “The Amazing World of Gumball”. I’m an adult and couldn’t get any full episodes of anything to run on those sites. I can imagine how frustrating it would be for a little kid, especially when you click an arrow that says “watch” and all that comes up is ads. Just completely terrible all around.

nevilleross

You have to have a cable TV account to watch the shows at Teletoon’s site now.

Vic

I didn’t even know the show was coming back until my DVR popped back up with an episode. Barely any promotion. Maybe Nick should tell people the show is coming back and promote it so it can get viewers. Its still breaking over a million viewers per episode? Is that really that bad (I don’t know much about viewership)? So bad they cant show the last 5 episodes of the season?

Yes, I think Korra is weaker than The Last Airbender but lets be honest, the show is still very good and leagues beyond many cartoons that are being pushed out on TV now.

Mister Twister

That Nick… first they deprive us of The Jungle Movie, and now this?

I am beginning to hate every single television channel right now.

BlueBoomPony

They’ve evolved her from a hot headed, impulsive child to much wiser young adult. It’s called a character arc and I think they’ve done very well. Heroes need flaws to overcome as well as external struggles. Perfect heroes who never make bad decisions are boring.

Barrett

“Korra has nothing. It’s just an action show and stupid interpersonal relationships between unlikable characters. There’s nothing it can tell you beyond that.”
———————-

Having only watched a handful of episodes of The Last Airbender, and never having seen Korra, I was wondering why the latter show seemed to have such a fanatic fan following in some corners of the interwebs. Sounds like it’s more of an action/soap opera for girls who like OMGDrama, so I guess I’m not missing much. Lemme know when something new with an actually engrossing set of plot and character arcs like Gargoyles or The Venture Bros. comes out…

I think the only reason people like Korra is because of ATLA nostalgia. And frankly I have no idea who they were aiming all of that OMGdrama crap at, the romance is so horrible not even the fangirls care for it. The only thing it has going for it is excellent animation.

Barrett

The bad or middling shows get lots of reruns. Shows with actual plots or something distinctive about them, not so much. It used to piss me off to no end how scarcely Cartoon Network would air Justice League. I think each episode got one or two airings, then was not repeated for 4-6 months. Some episodes aired once and were never repeated. i had to pirate the fantastic episode “Wild Cards” because I missed recording it the ONE TIME it aired, and I don’t think it ever aired again. Yet we got umpteen reruns of Ben 10, Ed Edd and Eddy or Pokemon. Same thing goes for The Venture Bros. It’s almost like they think they need to air it rarely to keep the special “cachet” around the show. Trust me guys, you could air VB three times a week and it would still be adored by existing fans and even better, discovered by new ones.

John Steele

Totally true, it is only in my opinion and I don’t want to seem like an idiot, I just really loved season 1 and the whole world that was created including the characters. How amazing and kick @ss was Lin Beifong!! The metal bending police! Korra was cool, Tenzin and his family stole their scenes they were so good! Bolin and Asami really great to.

I just felt that in season 2 the story was weak and it made the characters I loved worse. Why would Lin Beifong, who is an excellent police officer, not see that those two guys with the musctaches were fools? When a character we respect can’t see something so obvious it just makes her seem dumb….which she isn’t.

And not even trust Mako, who fought side to side with her in season 1, just enough to listen to his theories and maybe investigate them? Doesn’t feel true to that character…

So many little things like this which detract from the characters just to push the story in a way they want or to get a joke….poor choices.

I loved the Bison tea party! Great scene, and Tenzin’s children are great, interesting characters.

There are 6 of us that watch the show here and out of that only 1 of us liked it. I feel like that says something.

BlueBoomPony

It says 1/6 of you liked it. ;-)

John Steele

That’s True! :@)

storyfan

Doesn’t that just go without saying?

J.D.

Unlikable characters + No Aaron Ehasz writing = show with no heart

vivandiere88

What the hell!!! I so hope this doesn’t mean they will end up cancelling the next season!!!

James VanDam

Exactly. I am really thank full that hasbro at the very least has figured that part out. Also I’m sorry for reviving the pain.

The show is fine. They have been recently renewed for a 3rd & 4th season.

Martin Ramm

Honestly? People aren’t watching The Legend of Korra because The Legend of Korra is awful. It’s a shame, because ATLA was just so good!

Yeow McCheeseBurger

I don’t watch the show myself, but from what I’ve heard the third season
so far is a massive improvement over the second, which was hastily
commissioned by Nick at the last second when Korra was
initially planned as a one-season miniseries.

serperiorruler101 .

Wow, nick. Its like you’re TRYING to suck now. Bad seeds and pig goat banana cricket had better be good or you’ll lose all of my respect for you (or at least what little of it I have left).

Vince Vazquez

I hope that “Team Korra” just leaves Nickelodeon after they’re done producing Season 4 (which, despite them hating this series, they greenlit for some reason).

If digital is the future, than they really don’t need Nick, do they? They’d be better off pulling a Frederator and bringing their stuff to Youtube or something. Go at it on your own and leave Nick high-and-dry. They’re too stupid to program a block with a good lead-in apparently. What kind of genius expects Korra to flourish when they only advertise it DURING THE SHOW, and when it’s sandwiched between, not fellow action series’ like Power Rangers and TMNT, but musty old Spongebob reruns and their awful tween comedies?

Nick sucks. Korra doesn’t. This was never a good match anyway.

Katie Morgan

Legend of Korra was the only show I still watched on Nick. So, I suppose I won’t be watching Nickelodeon at all now.

devin

what this is not fair to dose of use how live in the carribbean and central america because how will we watch now and the sad part is we were so in tuned with this show and what will we do now its like we will be left with a strange feeling in common sense this is like house of anubis when that went to teen nick it got cancelled because people from nick were not watching it why because we do not catch teen nick we only nick and we have to pay to get it so how we watch is we do not watch so in factual sense that means the legend of korra will have no season 5 so yea put it on digtal see what happens do it

So basically I take it you watch the show courtesy of Nick in that fashion that otherwise the online option is unavailable due to region lock red-tape. That is truly sad but if you ever figure out VPN, it almost doesn’t matter unless someone locally cares to pick up the tab.

nevilleross

I know that you can’t accept this, but live action and animated shows were a staple of Saturday morning programming before you were born. Just because Cartoon Network did/does these shows is not evidence of failure-it’s just a way to vary the schedule somewhat.

nevilleross

Who asked you to?

Steven Bowser

I don’t understand, are you talking about spoilers or something?

Lord Xenu

Yes. Legend of Korra just lacks so much of what made The Last Airbender great. I stopped watching halfway through season 2, right after the Wan story arc, which was the only enjoyable part of that season.

It’s truly disappointing because the series had so much potential. The art is fantastic. The world building is fantastic. I love the setting of Republic City. But where it really fails is the character writing. Everyone seems to act like a child, even the adults, and no one ever develops or learns. Korra is still a brat, Tenzin is an eight year old in adult clothing, Mako is a dick, etc. And they’re always going to be that way. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that Korra is female. I /guess/ they were trying for a character like Katara from A:TLA, but they failed miserably. The difference is that Korra is just angry for the sake of being angry, never with any purpose. She’s just angsty and unrelatable. Katara was angry because she had principles, which sometimes lead to conflicts with the other characters. She was one of my favorite characters in A:TLA. But Korra? I hate every second she’s on screen. She’s just completely not relatable.

And amidst all this, the fans of the series absolutely flip out whenever you try to say a negative word about it. Worst of all is the conspiracy theory that Nickelodeon is deliberately poorly advertising LoK, thus leading to the bad ratings. Why the actual hell would a network do that to itself? How is having less viewers in Nickelodeon’s best interest?

To be honest, I can’t fault Nick for having trouble advertising it. They’ve been handed this series and they don’t know how to promote it. The characters are teenagers with attitude problems, and the adults act like children. There’s no overt violence to remain kid friendly, but the themes discussed on the show are very adult. It can’t make up its mind.

It’s not because of some grand conspiracy. LoK is losing ratings because it’s a poorly made show.